RELIEF

Title: Relief
Author: Elena Ferrer

"He's dead."

"I hate him! And I want him to die!"
I repeated the same words whenever I thought of Jim, my husband.
"Every night, I go to bed wishing not to see him the next morning still
breathing next to me. But he is always there when I wake up. He's
always alive!"
He was not bad with me. He never beat me. And he seemed to be
interested on listening to my opinion, though he rarely accepted any of
my suggestions. He did not really undervalue me but I did; I felt
inferior to him, and then, his success became my failure; he could do
whatever he tried and he was always successful but I could not even
make wishes because they failed.
"You don't hate him, Jamie. You may not love him but you don't hate
him."
"Why do you think I don't hate him, George?"
"You can't hate him. "
"Why?"
"Because you can't hate. I love you, Jamie."
"I can hate, George. But you love me, and you can't love someone who
can hate. But I do hate him. Do you still love me?"

I was sleeping when the phone started ringing. Before daring pick it
up, I stretched out my arms to cover the whole bed. Jim was not lying
next to me; his half of the bed was empty under my creeping arms.
"He's dead."
"Who's dead?"
"Are you Mrs. Roberts?"
"I am."
"It was a car accident."
"Was he drunk?"
"He wasn't."
"Where can I find him?"

"Aaahhh!"
I left the bed. I chose my jeans and a T-shirt to wear on. I went to
the bathroom to take a shower.
"You're alive! You aren't dead!"
I was running downstairs as searching for my car's keys into my
bag.
"I'm sorry, Jamie."
"Why are you sorry?"
"He's dead."
"Who's dead?"
"George is dead."
"How do you know he's dead?"
"I killed him."

We were sitting on the coach in silence, that we only interrupted with
our accelerated heartbeats.
"Why did you kill him?"
"It was not an accident."
"How did you kill him?"
"I broke his neck. Then, I crashed his car against a tree, near his
home."
"Were you inside of his car?"
"I was inside of his car before he got into and when I crashed
it."
"Why did you kill him?"
He did not tell me.
"I hate you."
"I know you hate me, Jamie."
"I hated you yesterday too. And I hated you the week before too."
"I love you."

He went upstairs.
"Where are you going?"
He was packing his stuff. The closets' doors were open. And the drawers
were out, and empty.
"Are you leaving me, Jim?"